


and there's no remedy for memory

by blasphemyincarnate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Caring Rowena MacLeod, Caring Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester Being an Asshole, Dean Winchester Has Trust Issues, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kinda, Morally Ambiguous Character, Talking, Well he tries, but it happens anyways, he doesn't mean to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 22:07:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blasphemyincarnate/pseuds/blasphemyincarnate
Summary: Dean is a little too guarded, Rowena is a little too talkative, Sam is a little too forthright, and Belphegor is a little too human.





	and there's no remedy for memory

**Author's Note:**

> based on this (my) tumblr post: https://insert-cleverurl.tumblr.com/post/188525989886/we-stan-i-miss-balthazar-ok-they-wrote-this 
> 
> ^^ this is the version with tumblr's I-miss-balthazar's gorgeous writing which is amazing and you should all go give some love to
> 
> anyways I love Belphegor a lot and I'm mean to my faves, have this

Sam doesn’t really know how they ended up here, just that one moment Dean was saying lazily, “Hey, wait, if you can see the ghosts, why didn’t you tell us there was one in Ketch?” and the next he was in Belphegor’s face, with accusing words and jabbing fingers. “Don’t even bother acting like you don’t have an agenda.” The demon, of course, looked bored and indifferent as usual.

Until he wasn’t.

Belphegor stands up the moment Dean’s finger touches him, and Sam knows the few steps his brother took back were not willingly. The demon hisses something under his breath and then repeats it, louder. “Maybe I do have a fucking agenda,” he snarls at Dean. It’s stupid, but Sam thinks he might’ve been able to see tears glistening in Belphegor’s eyes, if he had any to cry from. It’s his voice, Sam thinks. The choked-up, watery kind you have when you’re trying not to cry. 

“Maybe I do have a fucking agenda and maybe you should stop poking your nose into other people’s business. God, what do you even care? I’m just another fucking demon to you. Expendable, aren’t I? You’d throw me in front of a bus given the chance.” He ends the sentence abruptly, startlingly. Whatever outburst he was building towards is gone, the anger seeping away. Sam can see it in the way his shoulders sag and head it in his quieting gasps of breath. 

“Do you hear this guy?” Dean asks Sam, who is trying to convey with his eyes that no, he will not answer, he’s staying out of this one. “Like there’s ever been a single demon who helped us and didn’t hurt us in the end. Like demons don’t get off on lying. Like their agendas are ever anything besides killing us. Do you hear this guy?”

Belphegor scoffs, loud. His hand twitches. And then the only sound in the room is the clicking of the gun Dean suddenly has out, aimed steadily over the bridge of the white sunglasses.

“News flash, the world doesn’t revolve around you, Winchester,” Belphegor says. His voice contrasts sharply against his scoff, his twitching hand. It is exhausted and defeated and monotone. He pushes the sunglasses up a bit and stalks out of the room.

“Put the gun down, lad,” Rowena scolds. Dean gives the already-lowered gun a pointed look, but it doesn’t matter. She hasn’t looked up from her potion this entire time. “Can’t you see the boy’s upset?”

“I’m older than you, Rowena! I’m not a  _ boy _ !” Jack’s voice floats through the bunker and, if Sam closes his eyes, he can almost pretend it’s their son again and not an emotionally unstable demon in his place.

~|~~~|~

“One of you boys should go check on him,” Rowena says lightly a few minutes later. She puts something into a bottle and looks up, neatly folding her hands. “It wouldn’t do to make enemies, now.”

“Check on him?” Dean repeats, with a look of disbelief. “Like, like what, ask him if he’s okay, how he’s doing? Christ, Rowena.”

“You know, I’ve met him before,” the witch continues, as if Dean hadn’t said anything. “He’s one of the original demons. An angel first. Fascinating, I think. Look where he is now.”

“Rowena,” Sam says, with a growing pit of horror in his stomach. “Please don’t tell me- you and him-”

Rowena winks at him, then laughs. “No, we didn’t. He claims to be in Jack’s body for lack of better options, but he’s always liked the young ones. And the last time around- well, I wouldn’t do it with a seventeen year old boy.” She looks around, then leans in conspiratorially. “Don’t you know though, angels make the prettiest demons. And he’s not the only one around.”

Dean mimes gagging and Sam stares at his book until it feels safe to look up again. Which is probably going to be never - he won’t be able to ever look Rowena in the eye after this. “Okay, Rowena,” is all he says.

“Really,” Rowena says, going back to her potions and bottles. “Go on, Samuel. You boys pick so many fights and then wonder why you’re surrounded on all sides by the enemy.” She pauses. “It’s because you’re so quick to attack the friends at your back.”

Sam goes to check on Belphegor. 

“Demons smoke?” He asks on impulse. Belphegor eyes him over the top of his cigarette, the smoke half-obscuring his face. It fades into the night air, leaving the space between them clear. Sam lets his question hang in that space like an offering - like an olive branch.

“This one does, I guess,” Belphegor shrugs. In his mind’s eye, Sam sees him consider the olive branch, two fingers gripping the end of the stick. He evaluates it carefully, laying it flat on his palm to look at it from all angles. He takes it.

Then he drops his cigarette and stamps on it - Sam bites his tongue to stop himself from reprimanding a _demon, _who has definitely done much worse, for littering. “What do you want? Come to wave another gun around in my face?”

Sam blanches. “What- no, no. And Dean wasn’t trying to threaten you- well, he was, but he’s hesitant with trust, you know, and his first line of defense is anger or violence and-” Belphegor puts a hand up.

“Sam, you don’t have to explain the idiosyncracies of Dean Winchester to me,” he says with a dry look, then gestures for Sam to continue. He stares off into the forest by the bunker - at least, Sam thinks he does. It’s hard to tell where he’s looking, with the glasses.

Sam, of course, doesn’t know how to continue, so he just settles for blurting, “Rowena said we should check on you.” The silence in the moment after his words settle is deafening. 

“Rowena always has been a horrible mother who tries at the weirdest of times and somehow manages to make the entire situation worse.” Belphegor nods wisely. “Got my vessel sentenced to death last time we saw each other.”

Sam doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he doesn’t. “So, yeah, uh, this is me. Checking on you. How are you? If you do have a so-called agenda that’s not murdering us, what is it?”

Belphegor snorts, glances at Sam, then sighs. “Anything Heaven does, Hell has to do worse and more painfully, don’t you know? They’ve got their whole memory-wipe thing too. I want mine back.” He gets a wistful expression on his face, looking off into the forest again. Sam briefly wonders what he lost. 

Sam doesn’t say anything. Belphegor looks at him again, then reluctantly continues. “I do good up here, like stopping the destruction of the world, securing the Winchesters - you’re Goddamned legends down there - and I get promoted. You know what promotion means? Power. I get the ability to get those memories back. I know I lost something important. Maybe someone. Who knows? Not me. But I want to.” He huffs a little at his own pun and shuts up.

“Why don’t you just… get them back on your own? I mean, you’re a demon, aren’t you? What’s a little espionage to you?” If there’s a way of getting the memories back, that means they’re stored somewhere. If they’re stored somewhere, then that means it’s possible to steal them back. Doesn’t it?

Belphegor smiles and it doesn’t look even a little bit bitter. Sam wonders why that hurts, just a little. “Dangerous. Not worth whatever it is I lost. Not worth the risks. They’d do a lot worse than take my memories if I got caught. Besides,” and here, he looks at Sam and gestures towards the house with his head, “I’m a good soldier.”

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
